Goals of the Course:To hone your skills as an independent learner,get experience presenting
material in front of a group, and learn how mathematics can be used to study
real world problems.Specifically
problems related to the environment and sustainability.

A new component of the course will be to serve as
consultants to our local community and analyze a real world sustainability
issue. The outcome of this work will be some type of final product
(report/white paper/public presentation) that will make a contribution to improving
the situation.

Text:

Mathematical Modeling in the Environment by Charles Hadlock
which deals with topics on Ground Water, Air Pollution, and Hazardous
Materials.

Proposed Syllabus:

Part 1: Analyzing Data related to Environmental
Sustainability and predicting future trends. We will be using materials from
Professor Thomas Pfaff’s website:

Part 3: Modeling Heat Flow in a Residence: how to make a residence
more energy efficient?

Part 4: Throughout the semester, you will work on your
consulting project and give periodic updates on the status of this work.

Course Structure:

There will be reading to be done before each class; students
will summarize the key points of the reading by writing a short (one paragraph)
synopsis of the main points of the material. A key part of the synopsis will be
to state any questions or confusions you have from the readings.

In class, a student (or team of students) will present an
overview of the material that has been read and lead a discussion of the
material.

We will work problems from the book to help learn the
material and,when appropriate, will alsouse computer programs (Mathematica, Excel as well as specialized
programs). No previous computer experience is assumed. Class time will also be
spent presenting and going over homework problems.

Homework will consist of “textbook” problems but may also
include more open-ended problems and mini-projects.

Field Trips: We could make trips to some local sites of
environmental interest.

Course components:

-class participation, including preparing synopsis,
presenting and explainingmaterial
to the class (25%)